


Plans of Salvation

by JenniferOksana



Category: Big Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-20
Updated: 2007-10-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/JenniferOksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way to salvation is long and unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plans of Salvation

**Author's Note:**

> Scripture quoted: 1 Corinthians 10:13; hymn is "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and the other song is "Army of Helaman" by Janice Kapp Perry. Thanks to Roz for the look-over.
> 
> Written for Cappuccino Girl

 

 

Barb first remembers hearing and understanding the Plan of Salvation when she was a Beehive. They'd sung "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" that day, a long-gone autumn day in the Utah Valley, gossiped when they thought the Young Women's counselors didn't hear, and learned the real truths of existence.

When she closes her eyes, she can still hear the sound of a dozen teenage girls singing, lovely and awkward.

_I know that my Redeemer lives...what comfort this sweet sentence gives..._

Round, blonde, and fond of floral-print dresses, Sister Larsen had been the one to give the lesson. Barb remembers, and she can hear Sister Larsen, almost as well as she can smell the new carpet, the fresh white paint, in a long-vanished past.

"We can all get to the Celestial Kingdom, but it takes a lot of work. What did our prophet, Joseph Smith, call that work? Joanne?"

Enduring to the end, that's what the Plan requires. That's what it has always required. God will not allow His children to suffer more than they are able to bear. Scripture. Scripture mastery, even. Barb remembers that, too.

So if Heavenly Father has given her this to bear, then He must be sure that Barb can bear this. She can endure to the end.

She can endure this stranger teaching her Teeny the Plan of Salvation.

"So according to the fourth Article of Faith, what do you need first?" Nicolette asks in her funny, pinched little voice that drives Barb crazy.

Barb is sitting in a chair, too tired to get up. Her pride requires her to be sitting up in a chair, covered in a little blanket, wearing a Lifetime movie of the week head scarf, but she can barely open her eyes for her effort.

"First, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," Teeny recites. Her little face is glowing with pride; she's so smart. Barb can see it without opening her eyes, that concentration, that desire to know what Heavenly Father wants of her. "Second, repentance."

What she doesn't see is how Nicolette looks at this moment, because Barb doesn't want to see it. Doesn't want to see her look triumphant, doesn't want to see her looking humble, or smug, or whatever Nicolette feels, helping the almost-dying woman, and restoring Bill to polygamy.

She'd rather listen to the music in her heart, remember the Plan of Salvation as Sister Larsen taught it, the voices of her fellow Beehives. In a past when the Church had all the answers for Barb.

_He lives to bless me with his love. He lives to plead for me above. He lives, my hungry soul to feed -- He lives, to bless in time of need._

"Mommy, did you hear me? I said the whole fourth Article of Faith from memory," Teeny says happily, waking Barb up from the nap she didn't know she'd fallen into.

Barb opens her eyes, and sees Nicolette, watching her carefully. Nicolette doesn't look smug or happy or any of the things Barb expects of a daughter of Roman Grant. Nicolette looks afraid, her shoulders held so tight and high they're practically to her ears.

"Yes, Tansy has a very good memory for the scriptures," the woman says primly, mouth held tight. "I felt the Spirit, as I was listening to her, didn't you?"

Oh, what does Nicolette want from her? Is everything a litmus test with the woman?

"Definitely," Barb manages, albeit with a yawn. "Definitely."

Teeny beams, but Nicolette looks crestfallen. Oh heck, it's so difficult to know what this woman wants from her, and Barb is too tired to care most of the time.

"Can I sit in your lap?" Teeny asks. "You just look so cozy, Mommy."

"No, honey, Mommy isn't feeling good," Nicolette says. "I can pick you up, if you want."

Teeny's expression makes Barb feel better, even though she knows how unrighteous a feeling that is. Nicolette is trying to help her, and she's just glad that her daughter still loves her better than Nicolette.

"Thank you, Nicki," Teeny says, walking over and getting picked up. "Will you sing me a song?"

"What song do you want to sing, Tansy?" Nicolette asks, awkwardly touching Teeny's hair

"Army of Helaman," Teeny replies without hesitation. "Mommy, please sing a little, too."

_We have been born, as Nephi of old, to goodly parents who love the Lord. We have been taught, and we understand, that we must do as the Lord commands..._

"We are as the army of Helaman," Nicolette and Teeny are roaring, and Barb is humming, when Bill walks into the room. He adds his voice to the impromptu harmony, "We have been taught in our youth...and we will be the Lord's missionaries, to bring the world his truth."

Barb almost bites through her tongue when Bill goes to Nicolette first and kisses her on the cheek, patting Teeny on the head as he does so. The bitterness of it drains all the way into her throat and heart, down into her toes.

"Well, that's a Spirit-filled way to come home, and no mistake," Bill says, walking over to Barb and kissing her, for much longer a period than Nicolette. But Barb saw him go to Nicolette first, and she's not forgetting it.

Perhaps she is being deeply uncharitable; she agreed to live the covenant. But it hurts her in a way that goes almost as deep as the bone-deep weariness of cancer. If she weren't sitting here, not dying of cancer, but so close that her body can't tell the difference, she'd call it a cancer of the soul.

Barb, however, has survived cancer. No matter how cruel and bitter, this is no cancer.

"How's she doing?" Bill whispers in Barb's ear, looking at Nicolette quickly.

"Fine. Just fine," Barb says, not whispering. "She was helping Teeny with her Articles of Faith earlier. Did you know Teeny knows the whole fourth Article of Faith now?"

"Nicki helped," Teeny pipes in. "She had me practice the hard part and understand what it meant. Bap-tism by i-i-mmersion for the remission of sins. That means I have to get dunked all the way under."

"Yes, that's right. Nicolette got it just right," Barb agrees, and is shocked to see Nicolette's shoulders relax, a shaking exhalation of breath that appalls Barb.

What kind of woman has she brought into her home, so afraid of her status that she's sure that Barb's approval will raise or sink her position as the new wife? What on earth do they teach there at Juniper Creek, besides D&C 132 over and over?

"Well," Nicolette says, sounding a little less prim and a little more smug. "Teeny is so smart, it wasn't difficult at all. But I was glad to help."

Bill pats Barb on the shoulder as he stands and regards this part of his celestial family with a pride that makes Barb feel cold all over again. "How blessed we all are," he says. "How blessed I am, to have two such strong women in my home to lead and guide my children."

Nicolette bobs her head, a shaking little smile on her face. There is something in that smile that makes Barb very, very nervous.

"I'm going to get Sarah and make dinner," Nicolette says. "How does macaroni salad with hamburger sound?"

"Sounds great," Bill says. "I swear, I don't know how we lived without you, Nicki."

Barb does. Very well.

But she doesn't say that, and then Nicolette leaves, and Teeny wanders over to the television, and then Bill is somewhere else, and Barb is alone, remembering a Plan of Salvation that didn't require the covenant of celestial marriage.

Though they'd asked. "What about D&C 132?" one of the girls had asked. "Didn't the Church used to teach polygamy? Why did we stop?"

"Heavenly Father..." and there was a long, drawn-out pause. "Well, He doesn't give us more than we can bear, and there are some things we just don't understand in this life."

"So does that mean there will be plural wives in the Celestial Kingdom?" Barb remembers asking.

"It might, Barbara," Sister Larsen had said softly. "If your husband is a worthy priesthood holder. There are going to be a lot more sisters in the Celestial Kingdom than brothers, I think. And would you want them to be single for all eternity?"

"But he'd be my husband," one of the other girls said. "Why can't the other girl get her own?"

It hadn't been long before Sister Larsen decided they needed to sing instead.

_He lives to silence all my fears. He lives to wipe away my tears. He lives to calm my troubled heart -- He lives, all blessings to impart..._

"Brett Wilkerson is going to give me a ride to Mutual tomorrow," Sarah says, picking at her macaroni salad, oblivious to Nicolette's glares. "Then Sister Thomas will drop me off afterward."

"Are you sure you should keep going to Mutual?" Nicolette asks. "Your old ward is very nosy. What if Sister Thomas insists on coming in?"

"We've discussed this," Barb says sharply, with more energy than she's had in weeks. "I don't think it's right to take the children out of their lives because of decisions we've made as adults."

"Thanks, Mom," Sarah says, trying to hide her sneer at Nicki and failing pretty miserably.

"What if I disagree?" Nicolette says, suddenly a little pushy. "My children aren't going to pretend they're members of the apostate church just to ease their social lives. I think it will bring contention into the home, having two standards."

Barb's not pleased with the direction this conversation is taking, not one little bit. "We won't need to have that discussion for a long while yet," she says quickly. "And while we wait, I don't think it is appropriate to have this battle."

Nicolette looks at Bill. Bill looks at Nicolette. The silence is deafening.

Barb knows. The children are all looking at them, eyes wide. None of them quite get it, that Nicolette is pregnant, that this is truly a polygamous family now. Thank God.

But Barb knows. And her heart breaks inside her into sharp little knives, carving away at her dignity.

"Barb," Bill says in that voice of his, coaxing and wheedling and darn it all to heck, Barb wishes she had it in her to swear at a time like this.

"I don't feel very well," Barb says in a high voice, standing up. "I'm going to bed. Sarah, honey, you have my permission to go to Mutual for as long as you'd like."

She turn and walks out of her own kitchen, and thank goodness, nobody comes after her, because at the base of the stairs, tears are streaming down her cheeks.

It takes her a long, long time to struggle up those steps alone. And her head echoes, emptily, the words from Corinthians.

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

As her breath rattles in her chest along the hallway to her bedroom, Barb can practically hear herself pray. Heavenly Father, make me able to bear it. I can't bear it any more. You have to help me.

The familiar sound of the hymn Barb loves fills her head as she throws herself on the mattress, unable to bear it further as the tears soak her sheets.

_He lives, and grants me daily bread. He lives, and I shall conquer death! He lives, my mansion to prepare -- He lives, to bring me safely there._

Barb feels the arm put itself over her, and her first move is to push it away. "Get off me, Bill," she hisses. "I can't deal with you right now."

"It's not Bill," Nicolette says flatly.

"Oh," Barb says.

"You know, don't you?" Nicolette asks. "I didn't want you to find out that way, but I didn't know how to tell you."

Barb breathes in and out. The skin on her face is salt-sticky, and her nose is filled with mucus and barely works.

"I'm not going to die, you know," Barb says. "So you're not going to be in charge of my house. Not ever."

"I know," Nicolette says. Her arm is still atop Barb's body, and if Barb didn't hate this woman for what she stands for, an enemy, a Trojan horse from that old devil Roman Grant, there would be comfort here. "I learned that very quickly here. What my father thought and what was real were very different here."

She pats Barb on the side, but gingerly, like she's afraid Barb will bite her.

"What do you want from me, Nicolette?" Barb asks wearily. She is so weary, but she will not give up so this braided fundamentalist can force her daughters to wear prairie blouses and French braids and marry Albie or Roman or some other eighty-year-old with six wives already.

"I want you not to hate me," Nicolette says in a tiny voice. "I don't want to go back to Juniper Creek. And I know that if you hate me, I can never stay here. This is my salvation, Barb. I need you to save me so much more than you need me to save you."

Barb swallows hard. Heavenly Father, she knows, can answer prayers in unexpected ways, but she never expected Him to answer a prayer in a way that favored polygamy.

She puts her hand atop Nicolette's obviously trembling one and squeezes it as hard as she can manage. Nicolette practically stops breathing.

"Okay," Barb breathes out. "It's okay, Nicki. I don't. I don't hate you."

"I believe in the Principle," Nicki says, voice shaking but audible. "I don't think I did anything wrong."

"I know," Barb says, putting her other hand atop the first one, to steady herself as much as Nicki. "This is very different from how I expected my trials in life to go. I expected to have to face the coarseness of the culture, the adversary tempting my children. Things outside of me."

It's on the tip of Barb's tongue to say, "I never expected to look inside myself and see that the adversary had his hooks in my heart." But she doesn't, because Nicki has practically pulled her off the bed, she's getting such a hug.

"We'll face that together. All three of us. It takes more than two parents to face the challenges the adversary has for those outside the Church," Nicki says confidently. "But we can do it. Our children will be as the army of Helaman."

Barb feels the Spirit now, a still small voice, a warm feeling in her heart, a quiet _rightness_ suffusing her whole being. Heavenly Father is pleased with her now. For giving up her pride, and Barb sees it was pride, her sureness that she was right and not Bill or Nicki, and embracing the wisdom of the Spirit.

Nicki rests her chin on Barb's shoulder. Barb hums to her, as they lay there together in the darkness, united in love for the first time.

_He lives, all glory to his name! He lives, my Savior, still the same! O, sweet the joy this sentence gives -- I know that my redeemer lives!_

 


End file.
